


You I'll Defend

by TychoBrandt



Category: Undertale (Video Game)
Genre: But you can pretend, Diaspora, Do monsters dream of monstrous sheep?, Exodus - Freeform, Occupation, Other, You will never get used to this
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-28
Updated: 2017-07-21
Packaged: 2018-07-27 08:40:25
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 7
Words: 6,890
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7611226
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TychoBrandt/pseuds/TychoBrandt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Grudges are like wine: After ten thousand years, they're a bitter and awful thing. </p><p>The monsters have emerged from below Mount Ebott, but the humans of the city have their own ideas of what's to be done with them--or to them.</p><p>So it's come down to just you, your gun, and a fence keeping humanity from tearing the monsters apart.</p><p>There are worse hills to die on.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. It does look different, from up here.

The sun rises, as it usually does. 

First Lieutenant Kalev Renko watches. 

The first few rays bleed into the dense mist, throwing long the shadows of the ancient sea of wet pines that root Mount Ebott firmly to the earth. From his perch on the watchtower, he can see the skyscrapers of the city spring into existence, their polished mirror sides glinting in the early light.

Even through his balaclava, Renko's breath steams. His fingers, though gloved, are stiff with cold. He taps his forefinger against the triggerguard of his rifle. 

Well, he got through the night, at least, without having to point his gun or yell commands or cuff anyone.

This past week has been a headache. First, all this rain makes logistics a hassle, especially when you counter the monsters that have never seen rain before. Then you have nonsense like teenagers throwing saltwater balloons at the electric fences to watch them crackle and sizzle. 'Journalists' hovering near the fence at night, claiming to just be passing through--despite that Camp Ebott is in the middle of nowhere, and they've got camouflage on and weighted down with cameras. A handful of zealous protesters refused to leave at dusk, and after some stern words and a vocal guy getting tazed to the ground, they let themselves be bundled into police cars and taken back into the city. 

Renko sighs. The air steams. Some people couldn't leave well enough alone. And most were too stupid to realize that between thermal detectors and motion sensors and chemical sniffers, you weren't going to get within fifty feet of the fence without the military noticing (and already on the way to apprehend you).

He frowns, looking down at his boots. Realistically, the double-fence was a good investment; one tall fence, a buffer of razor wire, then another fence. Even if someone managed to get over twenty feet of wiremesh and the scroll of barbed wire at the top, they end up landing in a steel thornbush. Not exactly the public's favorite, but it's functional. But maybe a three-fence-system... three fences, two buffers. Nothing crazy had happened so far, but... all it would take is a few guys, a few explosives. 

Then again--

Renko snaps his head down. On his wrist communicator, the live map is indicating that someone is in the second southeast watchtower.

... No one's on duty in that tower right now.

Shit.

Renko scrambles up, kicks open the cabin door of the watchtower and slides down the ladder, checking his rifle. He lifts his communicator to his face as he runs.

"Second southeast watchtower, investigating. 10-2-B-3. Units converge."

His joints protest from the cold, but he runs faster, stock to shoulder. 

He gets to the tower in record time. His rifle is up, scanning. Already looking for potential cover. He moves forward--

And lowers his rifle, sighing. He pulls down his balaclava, exposing his face.

At the base of the ladder are the ambassador and the prince, looking stricken. And... that odd yellow saurian monster.

Renko raises his wrist. The three grow still. "All clear. Units disperse."

The three relax, just slightly. Renko looks over them critically as he approaches. The prince is standing shyly behind the ambassador, who looks sheepish and ashamed yet infuriatingly self-righteous. The yellow monster is looking back and forth, sharp teeth set in a worried frown, unsure of what to do.

"Ambassador Frisk," Renko says. His voice comes out a little harsher than he wanted--Asriel and the yellow monster flinch. "You're not supposed to be this close to the fence." 

The kid looks down for a moment, pursing her lips. Then, with sudden vigor, she begins signing:

_"We wanted to see the sunrise from the tower."_

Whether she's signing slowly because Renko can't read hands well or to be condescending, he doesn't care to know. Renko draws patience from a dark well, somewhere inside himself. He pushes his rifle up to his back, out of sight. "You couldn't watch from your house?"

_"Mom won't let us."_

"... Queen Toriel won't let you watch the sunrise?"

_"She won't let us get on the roof to watch."_

Oh. That doesn't surprise Renko, from what little he knows of the Queen of Monsters. "So you decided to come down here, instead. Where you've been told not to. Where it's dangerous."

She bristles a bit, and begins to sign, but the yellow monster speaks up, voice cracking from puberty: "It's not dangerous down here! There's the fence, and the guards, and _you_ , and--"

"And what if someone shot through the fence?" Renko says flatly.

The three stop, glance at each other guiltily. Renko bites the inside of his cheek. 

"Ambassador--"

_"It's Frisk."_

The well of patience must never run dry. Renko looks at her, at the defiant set of her jaw, her lowered brow, her upturned chin. 

"I'm not going--"

"It was my idea," Asriel says suddenly, pushing to be in front of Frisk. 

The spines on the yellow monster's skull and neck prick up."Asriel--"

"They won't let us on the mountain anymore, and they won't let us out unless there's a bunch of people and reporters and stuff, and we can't go underground, and--"

Frisk grabs onto Asriel's hand and holds tight. The goat monster is standing stock straight, free hand balled into a fist at his side, staring hard at Renko's boots, trembling as he rambles on.

"--We just wanted to see the surface, you know, really see it, without a bunch of adults telling us _what_ to look at, and--"

"Your Highness," Renko says, as gently as he can.

Asriel hiccups a bit as he halts mid-sentence. 

"It's okay. I understand." He sweeps his gaze over all of them. "Let's just take you home. Before your mom gets mad."

Asriel swallows thickly and nods. Frisk just looks away. 

\--- --- ---

They pile into Renko's CUV just as it starts to rain. Asriel shakes out his fur, flopping his ears and spraying the inside of car. Frisk and the yellow monster--M. K., they call him--laugh. Renko looks back them.

Asriel freezes.

"Seatbelts," Renko utters.

The buckle up, and off they go.

They don't say anything on the way. Well, that's not true--the three kids in the back whisper amongst themselves, but too quietly for Renko to hear. He doesn't mind. He occupies his thoughts with the Monster Royal Guard, and what the hell they were doing. Weren't they supposed to be part of the protection team? Yes, they were always there when Frisk and Asriel left Camp Ebott, but their affairs otherwise were a mystery to Renko.

But when they finally drive up the the newly-built mansion that serves as the Dreemurr household, the three make varying sounds of dread. 

Because standing in the driveway is Toriel Dreemurr, flanked by two guards who look nowhere as terrifying as her.

Asriel clutches at his horns. "She's gonna kill us."

Renko kills the engine, steps out, and opens the back door for them. "Alright. This is your stop."

Frisk gives him a less than charitable look, but the three push out of the car and shuffle awkwardly up to the Queen. 

Renko doesn't hear what she says. But the kids dejectedly walk back into the mansion--Asriel turns and waves to Renko before they shut the door. Frisk just glares. Renko weakly waves back. 

"Thank you for bringing my children back to me."

Renko nearly jumps. Queen Toriel is right next to him--despite her size, she moves like a hummingbird. 

"I--of course, your Majesty." Renko hurriedly salutes. He then stands there for a beat, like a statue, unsure of what to do or say to the bloody _Queen of all Monsters._

The Queen laughs--like a peal of bells. "Oh, you don't need to be so formal, Mr. Renko. We're all friends up here." Renko relaxes, forces himself to give a nervous smile. The two human guards that had been with Toriel have walked back to the house. It's just him and her, out in the rain. "My husband and I should be keeping a better eye on them. Your job must be difficult as it is, without having to chase after mischief-makers."

"No, it's--Your Majesty, this is my job." That came out wrong. Renko tries again: "The prince and the ambassador and their friends are not difficult. Knowing they're around--knowing that they're who we're protecting--makes our jobs easier. They're good kids."

She smiles, a twinkle in her eye. "Ah, you say that now, but try _raising_ them." Her eyes widen. "Oh, goodness! I've had you standing in the rain. My apologies, would you like to come in? Once Asgore wakes up, he'll be happy to make you a cup of tea--"

"Thank you, your Majesty, but--there's a change of shift, and I should go oversee it. But-- thank you." The smile comes more easily, this time. 

Toriel waves as Renko drives off back down the mountain, soaked to the skin, exhausted...

But feeling okay.


	2. I've had better jobs, to be honest.

The sun is high in the sky, and there isn't a shadow to be seen.

Renko sits in his CUV, tapping his right hand against the center console, his left hand gripping his service pistol. He keeps the windows up, as much as he likes the day's chill. The silence helps him concentrate. 

From the parking lot, he can see the playground just beyond flowering hedge fence of Camp Ebott School. It's lunch time, and the younger monsters are out releasing hours of pent-up energy. The older ones--the monster equivalent to teenagers, Renko muses--prefer to sit or stand in their groups, talking amongst themselves.

... He hasn't been inside. Major Kamiyama has, of course, as she's inspected just about everything on this mountainside. But Renko... he hasn't. Why hasn't he? What's stopping him?

He frowns, turning his eyes to watch grey clouds crawl across the sky. Those monsters... they're not quite as different as he expected. 

And by that thread of logic, the prime place for an anti-monster extremist to attack--well, a school, of course. The next generation of monsters. The school has its own security detail, of course, and monstrous magic is a formidable deterrent in itself, but... a van full of explosives or a shot at a crowd is all it takes. There hasn't been a single breach of the perimeter, but Renko has lived and died enough to know that complacency is death's favorite invitation.

Besides... the Queen teaches some of the younger monsters, here. And the King tends to the bushes and hedges like a mythological groundskeeper. If someone really wanted to harm them...

He raises his wrist to his face. "Checkpoint status."

A pause, and then: "Checkpoint is secure. Protesters maintaining acceptable distance," Martinez reports coolly over the frequency. 

Realistically, that's where they need him. Another uniform at the perimeter to complete the show of force. Another gun angled downward, but still with a finger on the triggerguard with a round in the chamber.

He's thought about that: Where his career would go if he killed a human in defense of monsterdom. He'd be court martialed regardless of the situation--that's what would placate the citizenry. A sacrifice for public relations. 

In a way, he doesn't really care. 

"Lieutenant."

Renko looks down at his communicator. Martinez's voice, again. "Proceed." A volumetric map of Camp Ebott superimposes upon his vision, the checkpoint blinking. 

"Protesters have brought a large cooler with them. They've taken out what look like glass bottles--"

Glass. "I don't care what's in them," Renko interjects. "Confiscate, by force if necessary. I don't want to hear anything about Molotov cocktails being thrown, understood?"

A beat. "Understood."

\--- --- ---

An hour later, the monster children are back in class and Renko is down at the checkpoint. As he pulls up to the fence, he can see it already: Protestors scattered, some on the ground, some gasping and rubbing at their eyes.

Damn it.

He gets out of the CUV and runs into the fray--or what's left of it. The ten guards on duty have already subdued or cuffed the protesters. Renko's glances down at some of the glossy yellow signs they were carrying, along with the poorly made pamphlets skittering away in the breeze. He'll need to get those later.

"Anti-racist is anti-human!"

"Human rights aren't monster rights!"

"Personhood is for people!"

Glass crunches under his boots. He doesn't read the others. He doesn't need to. He just marches up to one of his soldiers, currently cuffing a wheezing man on the ground.

"Rickenbacker," Renko utters, keeping his voice neutral. "Report."

"Oh--hey there, Lieutenant," Rickenbacker grunts, jamming his knee into the protestor's back to keep him still. "These are the ones we sent back a few days ago, plus a few more. When a rations convoy passed through--"

"The government should be feeding _people_ , not monsters!" shouts the pinned man, turning his head to glare up at Renko. He recognizes that face, bloodied nose and all. "There are homeless and people starving in the--"

"That's actually statistically false," Rickenbacker says cheerily, adding more pressure than necessary. The man barks out in pain. "Anyway, the gate opened, a few tried to rush the line. Nothing a little gas couldn't handle."

Renko grimaces. This'll be on the news for sure. _'Government gasses law abiding citizens exercising free speech rights.'_

"Very well," he says evenly, peering into the nearby trees. Just in case. "Escort them back to the city."

He turns around and walks back into Camp Ebott.

\--- --- ---

Rickenbacker hits the brakes on the van. The protesters in the back lurch forward.

"Ladies and gentlemen, here's our stop," Rickenbacker calls back through the one-way glass. "You just might recognize it."

He gets out of the driver's seat and throws open the rear doors with a flourish. The people bundled in the back step out, looking anywhere from indignant to sheepish. A few remain inside, arms crossed.

"Do I need to come in and get you?" Rickenbacker asks, a smirk twisting the side of his face as he rests a hand on his pistol.

That gets them out real quick. 

A few police officers are standing nearby--they're used to the drill by now. Rickenbacker nods. The officers warily nod back.

He climbs back into the van and looks over at Martinez, grinning. "Maybe they'll bring more of their friends, next time."

Martinez shakes her head. "Just drive," she says.

"As you command."

\--- --- ---

When they get back, Renko is waiting for them.

Martinez walks around the van, shaking Renko's hand. Rickenbacker hops out of the military van, giving a wave as he shuts his door. "Hey, boss--"

Renko is on top of him faster than he realizes. The man's cold breath is on his face. "Master Sergeant."

Rickenbacker knows that tone of voice. His spine straightens involuntarily. "Sir."

"We are a peacekeeping task force. We are understaffed and underfunded. We need as little outside scrutiny as possible. Your actions, while valid, are not conducive to the image of a peacekeeping mission."

"Sir, they tried to--"

"Gas? Electroshock weapons? How many tried to rush the gate? Two? Three?"

Rickenbacker's eyes flick to Martinez, then back to Renko. "One, sir."

_"One."_

"But when we neutralized him, the others moved forward to intervene." 

"Verbal commands?"

"Ignored. Sir, they--they don't listen to reason. They think they're martyrs. If we don't use force, they'll walk all over us."

Renko looks at Martinez. She gives a curt nod. "When we went to confiscate the bottles, they just smashed them on the road right in front of us. They started throwing--well, whatever garbage they had onto the road."

Flexing his fingers, Renko shakes his head. "Let them make fools of themselves. The rest of the public will stop supporting them. Don't give them any ammunition to use against us."

"We should give them some ammunition," Rickenbacker mutters.

"Rick," Martinez snaps warningly.

"I don't know how the hell you passed the psych eval, because that's exactly what I need you to _not be saying._ " Renko leans forward into Rickenbacker's face. "Keep it professional. We're not in the desert anymore. Understood?"

"Sir."


	3. You get used to it, eventually.

The sun is low in the west, hanging like a drop of stellar blood, ready to break upon the long tongue of the horizon.

But inside the armory of Camp Ebott, well, it may as well be any time at all. These military structures, despite being made to be rapidly deployed, are admirably functional. Controlled temperature, controlled humidity, controlled atmospheric pressure, controlled multidirectional lighting, controlled acoustics.

So as Master Sergeant Rickard Rickenbacker sits cross-legged in the center of the armory, sleeves rolled up to the elbow, carefully polishing the inside of a sniper rifle barrel, he chuffs a 'huh' of surprise when he glances down at his wrist com. Seven in the evening. He's been cleaning guns for three hours.

... And he goes back to tending to that barrel. He twirls it, slowly, watching the chromed rifling play upon his eye like a kaleidoscope, a mercury flower that never decides to open. 

He's covered the assault rifles, the sniper rifles, the pistols, the shotguns. Cleaned, lubricated. He's even rubbed down two hundred individual cartridges, to make sure they'll feed just right. He was aiming for another two hundred, but then a mote of dust on a shotgun across the room caught his eye.

This isn't Rickenbacker, really. He was never the type to agitate over details. That's for administrators and desk drones. He makes things happen. He improvises. 

So in his improvisational fashion, at a loss for Internet pornography, he decides to aim his twitching fingers at something else. There's a phallic joke in there somewhere, but he crushes it against the wall of his skull. 

Every connection going in and out of Camp Ebott is redundantly encrypted and monitored by a live team. He got past the last psych eval pretty smoothly--he doesn't need some pharma reject asking him why he keeps searching 'cute mischievous women in pretty sundresses.' Fuck that.

(... Those pysch evals to get on this operation were pretty weird, though. 'Did you have a fear of the dark as a child?' 'Did you have an imaginary friend as a child?' 'Do you have a family history of suicide?' What kind of questions are those?)

And all the women in uniform are like sisters or cousins to him. This isn't like any other port where he can get into an argument with a proud foreign woman over politics or religion and argue all the way back to her place and then argue about G-spots and foreskins and orgasms and then argue about who should make breakfast and then have a sentimental kiss on the cheek goodbye. And it's not like there's even a bar he _can_ go to, Rickenbacker thinks drearily, gently testing the sniper rifle's triggerpull. 

_Click._

Well...

There's that monster place. Okay, well, that's vague; there are a _lot_ of monster places, considering that there are thousands of them topside. But there's one in particular--run by some kind of fire elemental. Ifrit? No, that's not right. But it's probably the most popular place on the mountainside after dark. 

Rickenbacker frowns, setting the rifle back into its rack. He looks over the battleship grey walls, appreciating their symmetry. Soldiers aren't supposed to fraternize with monsters. Or make eye contact with them beyond what is necessary to communicate--especially not with civilian monsters. But... well, he isn't blind. He sees the other soldiers talking to the monsters. Maybe not much, but... it's not just barked commands. 

His eye locks on to an assault rifle in the corner. He picks it up and immediately begins scrubbing at it with a new patch of textile--he can practically smell the human oils soaked into the forend and grip. 

Thirty cartridges per magazine, ten-millimeter projectile, twenty gram projectile weight, thousand meters per second. Enough to put down one homo sapiens sapiens, easily. Or thirty on a good day. But a monster? A seven-foot machine of muscle like Asgore, or his royal guards? The government had expressed concerns. That's what the shotguns were for. Ten spheres of coated tungsten, ten millimeters in diameter, moving at five hundred meters per second out of a magnum shell. Didn't mention that to the monsters, of course.

Rickenbacker shakes his head. The solvent and lubricant particles must be fumigating his brain by now from the way he's thinking in numbers. 

So he goes outside and blinks in the darkness. 

\--- --- ---

In that same darkness, Rickenbacker stands across the street from the cafe. 

Well, he thinks it's a cafe. Maybe it's more like a restaurant. But that implies a large scale operation, right? So maybe it's a small restaurant. Like a... bistro. 

The light in the tall windows is a warm yellow. Like candlelight. Not the sterile white LEDs of the armory or the barracks or the mess hall. 

And--faintly, just faintly--he can hear the the clink of glasses, the muffled hum of conversation, of laughter, of voices raised in friendly debate. 

Rickenbacker turns and walks back down the mountainside. 

\--- --- ---

He pours some water out of his canteen into a small cup. He adds a small amount of isopropyl alcohol. He downs it.

He grimaces. Not quite the same as a shot. 

Rickenbacker decides to stop 'borrowing' things from medical. They've likely noticed by now.

\--- --- ---

His wrist com goes off, the chime reverberating in his earpiece. He looks down at it, the dim blue light illuminating the inside of the watchtower.

Martinez.

"Those kids throwing water balloons again? I want to throw something back. Preferably denser than aluminum."

"Comical. One of the royal guards bought a car."

Rickenbacker pauses. "... Okay."

"The car is _broken,_ " Martinez says pointedly.

"So why not have Singh fix it? He has every CUV running so good that I won't touch them."

"It's some kind of Italian sports car. We don't have the tools or the parts. Major wants us to escort the guard to an auto shop."

Rickenbacker's heart jumps at the thought of going beyond the fence. "Alright, let's go. Who's the guard?"

"He calls himself Papyrus, like the plant. Knight-Lieutenant Papyrus."

The red one. The tall monster shaped like a human skeleton, with the red scarf. Rickenbacker can't really imagine him driving a car, but... then again, one doesn't imagine skeletons doing much aside from laying very still. 

"Wire me those coordinates. I haven't had an opportunity to scratch a nice car in years."

"Nor will you," she utters. 

Rickenbacker is already down the ladder.


	4. Pain, the universal language.

Between dark and rumbling clouds, the sun peers down upon them.

The royal guard and a select number of government soldiers are in the practice yard, drenched by rain and shivering in the wind. Overseen by Undyne--that is, the Knight Commander Undyne. 

"Weak, weak, WEAK! Where's your spirit? Your passion? Fight like your life depends on it--your life, everyone's lives! You are the last one standing, and EVERYONE is depending on you!"

Renko has to admit, for a bipedal ichthyoid, she's a pretty good drill sergeant. With her glowing soulspear hissing and crackling in the rain, she stalks up and down the practice yard with the rolling gait of a sailor, darting between training groups to correct stances or footwork. Even in the greyed light of a stormy morning, her scales still glint like the edges of a thousand blue knives. She barks a bizarre blend of encouragement and condescension, personalized to every single soldier or guard she crosses. 

"You're OPEN!" she shouts, jabbing a human soldier in the ribs with the blunt end of her spear. He gasps and falls to the boot-churned mud, sword fallen, clutching at his side. Undyne laughs raucously. "Enemies are everywhere! Behind every tree, under every bush, in every shadow! EXPECT THEM!"

Some of the human soldiers turn pleading expressions to Renko, but he looks back at them dispassionately. This is how it works: Humans are trained in combat with melee weapons, and monsters are trained in the use of firearms. Mutual trust, mutual understanding, as Major Kamiyama had asserted. 

Undyne had little interest in firearms, however, but for the largest ones. The first time Renko had visited the practice field, Undyne was casually lobbing spears a hundred meters--and landing them, one after the other, in bullseyes crudely sketched on a steel plate. That plate must've been over three centimeters thick, and the spears punched through them like paper, sizzling and melting the steel before they reappeared in Undyne's outstretched hand, as if by--

... Well, it _was_ magic.

It became quite clear to the military that their body armor would do little to protect them. Then again, no one was too surprised. 

"KAL!"

Renko looks away from the chaotic sparring in the yard, and Undyne is bearing down at him, cyclopean eye flashing, gills flaring red, brandishing her soulspear. "And where have _you_ been, slacker? You missed our last session!"

"Oh, you know." He shrugs. "Paperwork." 

"Bah!" Undyne slams the end of her spear into the ground, vaporizing a spot in the grass. "It's the same thing, down at the fence! Losers show up, get their sorry asses beat down, and crawl back later. Let your minions deal with it! You need to be up here with me, preparing for when they send in their level boss!"

Despite himself, Renko feels a smirk pulling at the numbed muscles in his face. Admittedly, it's a bit strange; well, _all_ of it is strange. Undyne single-handedly runs a training program that puts special forces regimes to shame. That, all while wearing a sports bra and basketball shorts, seaweedish hair pulled into a messy ponytail. When it's hot and sunny, Undyne dons her jeans and boots and leather jacket, but at the first hint of rain her clothes are flung to the grass. From the way the soldiers kept stealing glances at her--well, Renko knew the difference betwen an 'observing anatomy' and 'admiring anatomy' glance after all these years. One time, Lead Scientist Alphys took a day off to watch Undyne work, and--well, Renko's never seen a dinosaur get a nosebleed, but there's a first time for everything.

"You know what? You're right. I should train. You and me. Let's go." He pulls off the jacket and shirt of his uniform, stripping to the waist. Renko may not have chiseled muscles and sculpted curves, but he'll be damned if he gets upstaged by some (relative) young blood. 

The soldiers and royal guards stop to watch. Undyne grins and cracks her knuckles, her teeth like pearly needles. "Bring it on, endotherm."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _If you have comments, criticisms, anything-- I'll listen._


	5. I know you know I know you know, you know.

The sun has turned its fiery eye to the other side of Earth, for the time being. The moon rises in its stead, cleaving stars with its great white sickle, sending them to fall, discarded, burning in an uncaring atmosphere.

Of course, First Sergeant Alma Martinez has little care for what streaking meteorites one could spy on a night like this. Especially here, at the foot of Ebott, where the city lights are so far away, where civilization fears to wander too close.

In the darkness of the watchtower, the volumetric displays float around her, slowly rotating. With precise gestures, they shift, showing different security camera feeds from different times of day, from all over Camp Ebott. The checkpoint, the barracks, the armory, the mess hall, the medical station, the motor pool. No shadow or corner went unscrutinized, up here. 

Martinez frowns. With her security clearance, she could only see the cameras down here. But those further up the mountain--where the monsters themselves lived? She couldn't find an open channel to them.

Her superiors claimed there were none, of course, but Martinez knows better. 

Why is Martinez looking over these feeds, anyway? What with an entire security team monitoring the feeds, with motion sensors and infrared cameras?

Because humans err. That security team--decent enough people as they are--will grow bored, distracted, suffer from eyestrain. No motion algorithm system is perfect. And--something that she's sure only Kamiyama has let a few know--magic can interrupt the security feeds without much difficulty. Ambassador Frisk and Prince Asriel and their friends have managed to sneak out a few times before Renko sent them back, and the security teams were none the wiser. So Martinez watches, carefully, as she has done every single night since being deployed here. Satisfied, she lets the screens disappear, and sits in the darkness for a while, letting the ghostly swirls of color fade from her vision.

Ghosts. That's right. Another thing they had to deal with, now. Down the chain of command from Major Kamiyama came an odd announcement; incorporeal monsters existed. They weren't gaseous organisms, their skin didn't somehow _not_ reflect visible light; they were simply... inexplainable. 

And they weren't even ghosts by human standards, either, as they weren't dead. That was simply what they were--incorporeal. The Major said to not mention this to the public; the religious community was already having difficulty dealing with 'demons' as they called them, and adding in ghosts would make things only worse. There had already been an apocalyptic cult that had to be put down, and that was at the very beginning of this whole ordeal, before the public knew any of the... more confounding aspects of monsterdom.

Martinez taps at her wrist communicator. "Rick." 

A pause. And then: "Yeah."

His insomnia was a mystery, even to himself. "Keep an eye on Shane Marshall."

He huffs. "Why? Already sniffed him out. Logged his IPs, his outbounds, tapped his phone, traced his license plate history through the city's CCTV. What more do you want to do about him? Put a tracker under his skin?"

"I want to make sure he doesn't do anything irrational." 

Rickenbacker sighs deeply. The only way he can sigh. "Alright, Alm, alright." She hears him moving over the line. "You can't sleep either?"

Her eyes have adjusted to the darkness, now. She can see outside the watchtower with ease, see the ominous outline of those massive pine trees. "No."

"Now you know how I feel." 

"Tell Renko. Go to medical."

"Already did, they gave me the whole run of it. Nothing worked. I just pretend it does so they don't drop me. And tell Renko? No _way._ "

"Most delicate military operation in human history, and Rickard R. Rickenbacker microsleeps his way through it," Martinez drawls, watching a meteorite immolate itself somewhere in the exosphere.

"Hey, I'm a better shot three days awake than all of these medal-bearers after a long nap," he says, the smirk evident in his voice. 

"I really hope that's not true."

"It is. Weep for your armed forces, Alm." 

\--- --- ---

The night shift in Camp Ebott is an interesting thing. 

A faint cold breeze through pine needles; nocturnal birds and insects; there is no more to the ambience than that. For a military outpost, it is unnaturally quiet. Even after all this time, after the soldiers realized that the monsters _weren't_ going to creep down the mountain and eat them in their sleep, it seems like every human this side of the fence is holding their breath, hoping the sun turns their face to them once more. 

But monsters? Monsters didn't have a sun or a moon or a circadian rythym at all. The windows of the houses are aglow with warm yellow light, monsters are out in their yards talking amongst themselves or stargazing, young monsters are playing in the streets, the restaurants and bars open and bustling. 

From the checkpoint, Martinez squints up at the monster neighborhood. Such a small, delicate thing, really. 

She pulls out an unusually shaped cellphone and taps at it.

_mendicant: stig's cousin gonna have a dark shadow over him for a while_

Martinez counts the seconds. One... two... three... four... fi--

_clevergirl: oh okay, that's good to hear. i was just worried, and p-- dead sea scrolls is always too enthusiastic about this kind of thing, and it's not like he doesn't have the foresight or anything, but he just always thinks he can deal with the consequences, and he does have contingency plans, mostly for food allergies and kitchen fires, but--_

Martinez's eyes blur a bit as she scrolls down the message. She can't deny the royal scientist's genius, but... 

_mendicant: hey_

Alphys always uses the text-to-speech function. Defeats the point of this whole sneaky setup, when you think of it.

_mendicant: don't worry, we'll handle it_

_mendicant: trust me_

A pause.

_clevergirl: i do! i do trust you! me and u-- nessie too!_

_mendicant: i know. you've been a good friend._

Martinez's finger hovered over the 'send' key. The word kind of came out without thinking. 'Friend.' She's not lying when she calls Alphys a friend. She fits the definition. 

But it still feels strange. But she sends it anyway.


	6. Relativity, too, is relative.

The sun radiates overhead, warm and waiting and patient.

Wiping the sweat from his sullen brow, Corporal Morgenstern squints up into the blue sky and sighs. Oh, distant sphere of burning plasma. If only he could be so patient as that.

He's not going to be insincere about it; that's not in his nature. He will readily admit that he is not the best guard by any definition of the word. Yes, he is observant. Yes, he is vigilant. And yes, he is quite ferocious when need be. But patient?

A butterfly flickers past, bright and sudden. Morgenstern's eyes widen, track it, unbidden. He admires its shimmering blue scales.

... Morgenstern is not the patron saint of patience. 

But this is what he has to do. Because, after all, Morgenstern is a monster.

No, not literally. Not like Asgore or Toriel or Asriel or the rest. Far more figuratively. In the sense of a hulking, massive, seven-foot-tall, four-hundred-fifty pound human. One with shoulders so broad he needs to step through most doors sideways. One with hands large enough to comfortably hold human skulls. One who will not fit inside most vehicles, or elevators, or chairs.

In a world where agriculture and manufacturing is all but completely automated, mindful giants like Morgenstern are relegated to the military. Out of sight, out of mind, but quietly utilized. 

He was part of the military police for a reason. He didn't want to kill anyone--that was one of the first things on his resume, the first thing he said during his interview. The officers glanced at each other, but accommodated. That was years ago.

Morgenstern shifts his weight from one boot to another, adjusting the sling on his rifle. His hand--a bit oversized upon the rifle's grip--is getting tired.

He watches as a van of protesters drives up to the checkpoint.

He heaves a great sigh and steps forward.

\--- --- ---

An hour later, the van is being towed off, and Rickenbacker is driving the protesters--all placed under technically lawful arrest--back to the city in an CTV. He was laughing as he climbed into the driver's seat, drawing a finger across his neck. 

Morgenstern likes Rickenbacker, the person. Really, despite everything, he does.

But Rickenbacker the soldier scares the fuck out of Morgenstern.

\--- --- ---

He remembered the first day. When dementia seizes his brain, that day will be the last thing he forgets.

Asgore had strode up to him, looked him straight in the eye. Circular pupils versus rectangular. Given him a firm handshake--his furred hand dwarfed Morgenstern's.

"Howdy," the King of Monsters intoned, voice like rocks down a mountainside. 

It was the first time since the womb Morgenstern felt normal. 

\--- --- ---

In the beginning, he had walked past the training yard one day, curious. But cautiously curious, for everything Morgenstern did was, by his nature, cautious. He watched his fellow soldiers, sleeves rolled up and muddied up to the knees, scrapping and straining upon the grass.

Undyne saw him. He should have known, the fool. Few could escape Undyne's prison searchlight of an eye, anyway. "Yo! Punk!" She aimed at him with a dramatic finger.

With his usual intertia, Morgenstern slowly came to a halt. "Uh... me?"

"No, that tree, obviously. Yeah, _you!_ "

Like the surface of the ocean, Undyne's ever moving, ever holding the promise of an abrupt and uncontrollable violence. The air grows denser, Morgenstern thinks, heavier with her intensity the closer one stands to her. 

"I, um--" Morgenstern slowly came forward, unsure of what to do with his hands. At a loss, he clasped them behind his broad back. "Knight-Commander," he uttered, appraising her. It was a warm day--she was wearing her signature leather jacket, and a black baseball cap sat upon her head.

Undyne gave a dismissive wave. Morgenstern noted that her fingernails were... pointed. Red. "Ranks, my ass! What's your name?" 

He felt the soldiers in the yard watching him. He shifted uncomfortably. "Morgenstern. Hans Morgenstern."

"Morg! Get in here."

So he did.

And they proceeded to spar for two hours. 

And, despite that Undyne is a foot shorter and a third of his size, she is unmovable. 

Her fists are smaller, but sting venomously. Her leglocks and armbars are like iron vices. Suddenly--suddenly Morgenstern is five years old again, and he can hit as hard as he wants without hurting anyone, without the looks of shock and fear.

One of his punches traveled too far--Undyne cocked her head, letting it travel past harmlessly, and suddenly her hands had a grip on his chest and his balls--and Morgenstern can only blink confusedly for a moment before he realized that she'd lifted him above her head.

... And he's traveling through the air...

... And rolling to an unceremonious halt. 

He just lied there, looking up at a cloudless sky, feeling the warmth on his flushed skin, the grass in his hair, dirt underneath his fingernails.

Undyne loomed over him, grinning with her mouthful of scalpels. "You're pretty good, punk. Almost on Renko's level. Come back tomorrow!"

Soreness and bruises aside, Morgenstern did.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> _Unrefined and short, but here it is._


	7. The Number of Colors You See is N-1

The sun hung close, like a ready knife; felt, but not seen. 

Martinez sat in her CUV, and waited. And waited. Until the entire vehicle cabin was inundated in her carbon dioxide, until it smelt like the interior of her lungs.

But Martinez is patience personified. She waits the way time passes; without issue or interest. Her rifle, propped up in the passenger seat, is less patient than her. 

Until her target emerges from the palace. She sees her, and immediately her neurons snarl and burn like so many stars.

Hannah Kaufmann. 

It was all hammered out like primitive copper, full of bumps and edges and unkind to touch, but decent enough to look upon; that was how historians would describe the first mediations between human and monster. _Homo sapiens_ and _montro dirus._

The first agreements were simple. A place for the monsters to live. Food, water, shelter not to be denied. Assumed protection from hostile humans. An expectation of monsters to not fulfill their monstrous expectation. And, of course, for Frisk to remain in the custody of Toriel Dreemurr.

Martinez flexed her fingers against the steering wheel. Technically, it was Asgore _and_ Toriel. Even monsters knew a two-parent family looked more stable than the alternative. Harmless as she looked, Toriel knew PR like no one else--soon after the great emergence, it became evident than she knew realpolitik better than her husband.

But there was one agreement that was a source of tension for both parties. For Frisk to see a child psychiatrist, considering all the things she had... endured. Suffered. Depends on who you asked.

Frisk, particular as she was, went through a few before she found Kaufmann. Now Kaufmann was older than the others--twice Martinez's age, easily, and with thrice her empathy. But Frisk knew people. Their judgment of character was remarkable bordering on unsettling. So after the first session Toriel no longer sat in, and it was simply Frisk and Kaufmann, talking about...

... Well, no one was sure. Frisk was mature for her age, in terms of emotional intelligence, but one can't defeat puberty--and like any other almost-teenager, getting a straight answer out of her was beyond even the most steadfast interrogator. 

Major Kamiyama vouched for Kaufmann. So did Renko. All the same, if Kaufmann had looked in her rearview mirror a little more closely, or peeked through her blinds, she may have seen Rickenbacker's wide and unblinking eyes watching her back. Thermals. Laser microphone. Chemical detector. Waveform reader. The works of spy fiction.

But she didn't, apparently. Rickenbacker came back with nothing. Ordinary psychologist, ordinary woman. Two grown children. Widow. One dog. Did crossword puzzles. So apparently this kindly psychologist simply passed through the body scan and checkpoint twice a day, without complant, and _wasn't_ informing any third parties to her activities.

Not that Martinez doubted Rickenbacker's subterfuge, but she didn't entirely believe him.

So she slides out of the CUV and brisks walks to intercept her.

"Good morning, Ms. Kaufmann."

The older woman gave a slight start at this sudden apparition bursting from her periphery. "Oh! Good morning, Ms...?"

"Martinez." Though it was just about noon, but Frisk liked sleeping in. "But call me Alma--everyone does. Do you have a moment?" She faked a chuckle. "It's about Frisk, as you can imagine."

Her face betrayed nothing. She smiled, laugh lines around glowing warm eyes. "Of course."


End file.
